The very idea of being harangued by your clothes – which have found their voice only so they can burst open a suitcase and criticize your washday skills – is bad enough, but later commercials had women criticizing men for their ring-around-the-collar, and doing so in a way that clearly intended they had become undesirable mating prospects, and would soon be torn to pieces by predators.

Automatic dryers, also introduced after the war, completed the transformation of washday (although only Westinghouse thought to gladden the laundry room in 1952 with a machine that played "How Dry I Am" at the end of each cycle) This brave new world of washing was made even easier with new cleaning agents.